After a long break while working for a start-up company I’m returning to my main technological hobby – quadcopters.
This time I’m building a quadcopter based on the HobbyKing AIO board:
My main goal is to control the UAS (unmanned aerial system) over the cellular network. This means that commands will be sent to the UAS over the cellular network and the video feed from the UAS to the operator’s console (a computer, or a cheap PS3 joystick) will also be transmitted over the cellular network.
There is nothing new in this approach by itself and people all over the net are doing it by putting a $50 Raspberry Pi running Linux on the UAS. My angle on this would be to try and achieve this goal with cheap hardware.
My development plan is as follows:
- Build a good and stable UAS and get it to fly with the HK AIO controller – using the HK firmware
- Compile the firmware from sources, configure it and get it to fly
- Transmit commands over the cellular network
- Transmit the video feed back over the cellular network
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